Sir Paul McCartney to play yogic flying benefit gig

Sir Paul McCartney is to play a benefit concert to raise money to teach children yogic flying, the Indian meditation technique.

By Matthew Moore

1:02AM GMT 27 Jan 2009

The New York show is being organised by Twin Peaks director David Lynch, one of the leading figures in the Transcendental Meditation Movement.

Followers of the technique, popularised by the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in the 1960s, believe that enlightenment and world peace can be achieved if just one per cent of the population practise yogic flying, which they claim is a type of consciousness-driven levitation.

The Beatles including Sir Paul were among Maharishi's celebrity acolytes.

"Every child should have one class period a day to dive within himself and experience the field of silence-bliss – the enormous reservoir of energy and intelligence which is deep within all of us," Lynch wrote on his website.

Country singer Sheryl Crow, Pearl Jam singer Eddie Vedder, Scottish songwriter Donovan and musician Moby have also been lined up to play the benefit concert at Radio City Hall on April 4.

Lynch claims to have practised transcendental meditation twice a day for the past 35 years, and in 2005 established the David Lynch Foundation For Consciousness-Based Education and Peace, to spread the technique to schools and colleges.

He has toured the world to raise funds for the charity, and hopes the New York gig will bring in enough money to teach 200,000 children in every continent.

The Natural Law Party, which was inspired by transcendental meditation, fielded nearly 600 candidates in the 1992 and 1997 general elections. They all lost their deposits.

Transcendental meditation is based on the Maharishi's interpretations of ancient Vedic texts.